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Yashica Microtec 70

 

The technical stuff:

Camera Type:- 35mm Compact Viewfinder (fully automatic)

Lens Type:- Fixed 35 - 70 zoom (auto exposure)

Shutter:- Automatic multi speed

 

 

There are quite literally thousands of plastic compacts around at charity shops and car boot sales and if you're careful you can pick up a real bargain. This one is in superb condition and came complete with it's box, case and instructions. As for performance, given the limitations of such a piece, is fantastic. The auto focus is pin point the lens is so sharp it could chop down trees and the metering is bang on. Sadly the limiting factors with these small lens cameras is that they have practically no perspective control and they are not very clear at long distance. They tend to shoot at high speed wide aperture which is the reason why they don't focus well at distance unless they have a landscape scene mode. As it happens this one does have infinity focus mode but I don't think it was used for the shots you see here. Having said, I am amazed by the resolving power of such a small lens, the two pictures with the adjacent close ups are some very tight crops of the original images. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because the Zoomate 140 showed similar levels of image quality and Yashica compacts are legendary. It does raise the question of what happened to Kyocera-Yashica when the digital race started, I don't recall seeing any Yashica digitals, I must do some research and find out. The picture of the sun dial on the wall is a bit worrying though. It seems that the camera can make time stand still because according to the sun it is 1 o'clock but as you can see from the clock in the picture below it's actually 1:45. Incidentally, my son borrowed the camera for this session as we were in Winchester and he wanted to do some shooting. I had the Vivitar 6000 and this was my spare. I will take it out again myself for another shoot but that may be some time. 

 

 

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